The Virginia Department of Transportation has harnessed the power of accelerated decomposition and the odor-suppressing wonders of sawdust to turn its highway carcasses into plant food.Some were skeptical. VDOT collects as many as 55,000 dead deer a year. Could compost bins keep up - without raising a stink?
Jim White, a project coordinator for the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation & Research, was swayed by a system that can break down animals in as little as six weeks. It forces air into the bottom of sawdust piles to speed the work of microbes, then collects the liquid that leaches through the heap. Workers spray the by-product back on top, again to hurry things along.
"After one visit to a NC farm, watching them load sows one on top of the other, I was convinced it would work for us," White said.
